Candied Hibiscus Blossoms

[KatieLoeb]

Hello All:

Cocktails and spirits are my strong suit. Being a pastry chef, not so much. I've admired all of your collective wisdom in the Pastry and Baking forum and hope I can get some suggestions for my current dilemma.

I'm (naturally) in charge of Thanksgiving cocktails this year, as I have been in the past. I'll be making a tall drink with Cranberry-Pomegranate tea (which contains Rooibos and Hibiscus), cognac, fresh lemon and a sweetening agent (quite likely at least a bit of hibiscus simple syrup made from the soaking water from the hibiscus flowers) with a topper of ginger ale/ginger beer to carbonate and make the drink more a sipping drink rather than pound-able stuff that will paralyze us all even before dinner. I have a few dozen whole hibiscus flowers re-hydrating overnight in boiling water. How can I candy the flowers so I can use them as a pretty garnish for the cocktails when I'm through?

I was thinking of taking them out and just dusting them with extra fine sugar, but might there be a better way? Should I make the hibiscus simple syrup, soak them again in that and then simply allow them to dry for a couple of days? I want them to be pliable and edible garnishes, and will likely poke them up onto a decorative pick of some sort to stick into the drinks.

If anyone has some experience with this or suggestions, I'm all ears.

Thanks in advance for the assist...

[Chris Hennes]

Sheesh Katie, I think I'm going to come to Thanksgiving at your place! With cocktails like that the turkey won't matter a bit...

I have never candied flowers myself, but a few years back a member posted this procedure for doing it. I don't know if it will work for hibiscus, but it seems several others were done successfully.

[KatieLoeb]

Thanks Chris. I might have to cobble together my own procedure. I like the idea of spraying them with an atomizer of some sort to get a nice dusting of thinned egg white or simple syrup on them for the sugar to stick to. I'll report back on my results and with a photo of the finished results if they're presentable.

[Snadra]

That cocktail sounds great!

Hibiscus (usually called rosellas here and I think similar to jamaican sorrel) are commonly used to make jam here. In fact, I have a jar my mother-in-law made sitting in the cupboard now. I've also seen a few old-fashioned recipes for cordials and stewed rosellas, but as far as I know, they are always made from the fresh flower, and I gather you are using dried? I leave it to others to work out whether it's possible to candy the dried fruit, but it can hurt to try, can it? At a guess I suspect you would need to simmer it in syrup in stages over a number of days to get the sugar to penetrate the flower.

There are some ideas at the bottom of this page.

In the meantime, if you can get your hands on these it could solve your garnish problems.

Edited to fix link.

Edited November 21, 2010 by Snadra (log)

[KatieLoeb]

I'd seen those flowers before and they're gorgeous but prohibitively outrageously expensive, especially for a commercial environment. I decided to make them myself. I made a huge batch of flowers and turned the soaking water into hibiscus flavored simple syrup (with just a bit of vanilla extract and Chinese Five Spice as well) last Valentine's day for my restaurant for about the cost of one of the large jars with just a few flowers in it. They worked just fine and the resulting cocktails were delicious and pretty too, if not as camera ready as the photo on the product website.

This time I want to rehydrate the flowers and lightly sugar coat them so I can use them as garnish. I think I'll start with making the syrup again, lightly dunking them, letting them dry slightly and then dusting them with superfine sugar and letting them dry completely in the oven with the heat turned off. If I do them tomorrow they should be fine by Thursday afternoon. I'll report back on my progress...

[KatieLoeb]

Hibiscus blossoms are drying on a rack in the oven overnight. Will try to wake up early enough to sugar coat them before work in the AM, if not right upon my return home in the early PM. Let's see if this works...

[Snadra]

I hope you'll have a chance to share pictures!

I agree with you about the prices of those blossoms. They're made a short drive up the road from me and the prices are still awfully high.

[Lindacakes]

I want to see a picture, please . . . Of the flowers and of the finished drinks!

I am thinking that hibiscus are large and that they might collapse under the weight of the sugar. I would have suggested using a mound of sugar as a support, up inside the flower, too, and allowing them to dry like that.

Once on a trip to Hawaii I made it a focus to drink as many tarted up drinks as possible, and drew each one for a little souvenir book. It's one of the happiest vacation memories imaginable . . .

[Snadra]

I want to see a picture, please . . . Of the flowers and of the finished drinks!

I am thinking that hibiscus are large and that they might collapse under the weight of the sugar. I would have suggested using a mound of sugar as a support, up inside the flower, too, and allowing them to dry like that.

Once on a trip to Hawaii I made it a focus to drink as many tarted up drinks as possible, and drew each one for a little souvenir book. It's one of the happiest vacation memories imaginable . . .

The flowers aren't the large hibiscus you've probably got in mind. They're actually the calyx of a smaller flower from this plant, which should stand up quite well to what Katie plans. They also have a fairly large seed in them that needs to be removed if you plan to make jam/stewed fruit from them. I've had rosella jam and it's got a nice refreshing, almost raspberry flavour. So, so far I am imagining a gorgeous red-coloured drink with quite a bit of acidity and some sharpness from the gingerale, plus the garnish.

By the way, your souvenir cocktail booklet idea is just brilliant!

[KatieLoeb]

OK folks. Here are the photos of the much ballyhooed Man Full 'O Trouble Punch, which I named after an historic tavern site here in Philadelphia that is but a few short blocks north of my home.

Here are the hibiscus flowers that I let dry a bit, drizzled again with the hibiscus simple syrup (they got a bit too dry) and dusted with superfine sugar, drying in my oven:

Here's a pic of the filled punch bowl with the giant block of ice with lemon slices frozen into it:

Close up of the punch bowl and the finished drink:

And a serious close up of one of the flowers garnishing the drink:

Here's the final version of the punch recipe too, in case anyone's feeling ambitious.

Man Full ‘O Trouble Punch

2 quarts Stash Cranberry-Pomegranate tea (available at Wegmans), brewed and cooled

1.75L bottle cognac

1 cup Grand Marnier

.5 cup Laird’s Bonded Apple Brandy

.5 cup Pama liqueur

.5 cup Carpano Antica vermouth

2 cups Hibiscus simple syrup (with a hint of Pumpkin Pie spice and vanilla extract)

.5 cups sugar, dissolved into lemon juice

2.5 cups fresh lemon juice

Ginger ale

This made 1.5 gallons which I made into three 1/5 gallon batches topped with approximately a pint of ginger ale each. It was exactly enough for 25 adults (some of whom had several and some of whom only tasted) to last through a long day of feasting. I used the Pama liqueur simply because I had it around and needed an excuse to empty the bottle. That could easily have been 8 oz. of cranberry juice or half cranberry half pomegranate juice instead. This was very tasty and well received. Some of the lighting in the pictures don't really do the color justice. It was exactly the right shade of bright red and boozy but not so much so that you were afraid to have a couple more. Given the history of our crowd to be half in the bag before dinner is even served, making a punch that had tea and ginger ale to stretch it out, and serving it over ice so it could dilute just a bit worked out great. I'll definitely be saving this recipe for future reference. It was pretty, not too hard to make and well liked by even those who didn't normally drink "mixed drinks".

Thanks to all of you for your help. While the blossoms might not have been exactly what I'd envisioned, they were in fact still soft enough not to break a tooth on them and very delicious when eaten at the end. Quite a few people commented that they'd never tasted hibiscus in its purest form that way and found it to taste quite a bit like tart raspberry.

Edited November 27, 2010 by KatieLoeb (log)